9 March 2009

Why is this happening? Why do we suddenly get this pattern—an orchestrated set of attacks on Australia’s regulator? Most Australians support our regulators. Most Australians think it is important to have a strict set of rules and fair dinkum, impartial, tough umpires. But there are, sadly, some people in the community who do not. There are some people in the community who do not like regulators and who do not like tough rules. The sharks and the shonks and the spivs that inevitably populate the nether regions of the financial world do not like regulators. Unfortunately they have taken over the Liberal Party. The sharks and the shonks and the spivs have taken over the Liberal Party. There has always been a factional tension in the Liberal Party—not between the wets and the dries but between old money and fast money. And fast money has taken over.

Even before Malcolm Turnbull became leader of the opposition, Labor worked furiously to find something in his past to tarnish his reputation. The thinking was that he was a merchant banker, surely he must have been up to no good. What have they found? Absolutely nothing.